Page 97 of Playing the Backbeat

“We should probably talk, right?”

“I hate this part,” I admit.

She laughs and my shoulders drop in relief. Sure, we’re uncomfortable as fuck, but we’re still us. And we’re trying.

“Me too,” she admits. “Where’s the new apartment?”

“North High.”

“Close to work?” she asks, knowing that’s what I wanted when I was looking, coming up empty at every turn.

“Very.” I desperately try to get a read on her, but she’s holding it all in somewhere I can’t see.

“Have you signed the lease?”

“No. No, I wanted to talk to you.”

“Me?” She sounds surprised. “Why would you need to talk to me?”

“Because things are different now compared to when I moved in.”

“And what do you want now?” she asks.

That’s the question. But more important than my answer, is hers. I know exactly what I want. I want everything Aiden talked about the day he married Bec. It’s Dee I want to build a life with. A life worth remembering. A life worth living.

“I’m hoping I want the same thing you do.”

“Don’t put this back on me, Dylan. You’re the one with a decision to make here. Are you moving out?”

“Shouldn’t we make the decision together?”

“Is there really a we? We’ve been friends for years. Roommates for only a few months and sleeping together for less time than that. It doesn’t have to mean more if you don’t want it to.”

It hurts more than I thought it would, hearing her ready to give us up so quickly. The first out makes itself available, and she’s willing to jump on it.

It doesn’t rip her heart out to imagine this thing between us dissolving as if it never existed.

“So, you’re saying this whole thing”—I gesture between us—“this was just…what? Fun for you? Something to pass the time? Something that only matters when we live together?”

“I think it was fun for both of us,” she teases, too stubborn to take me seriously for once in her fucking life.

“Stop acting like this was all a joke, Dee. It’s not a joke,weare not a fucking joke.” She stiffens, finally catching on to the fire that’s threatening to burn me up from the inside. If this is so easy for her to throw away, why should I cling to it?

“It’s not a joke,” she agrees, her voice steady. “But we were never clear on what this was.”

“Was, huh?” So quick to end it before we even fucking started. “So that means itwasn’treal? Sounds an awful lot like fear to me.”

“You’re one to talk. You’re scared too.”

“Yeah, and you make me brave,” I shout, struggling and failing to keep myself calm. Fuck, I need to leave, but my mouth has other plans. “You make mewantto be brave. To ignore the doubt, ignore the uncertainty, ignore every stressful thought that demands to be heard and instead just allow myself to fucking live. I want that,” I say, hope bleeding into my voice, so raw it hurts.

She looks at me and it’s like she doesn’t even see me.

“But would you want that with me?” she asks, and I’m taken aback. She huffs a laugh. “You know the kind of person I am, Dylan. I’ve spent half my life trying to make myself smaller, to fit into the box people wanted to put me in, only to spend the next half of my life doing everything possible to live as large as I can. I’m not willing to be anyone else but me anymore. I’m not going to do that again.”

Does she not know I love everything about her?

“I would never ask you to. Why would you think that?”